"Book readers" - Season 8 Episode 3 "The Long Night" - Spoilers post 2 forward

PhiloCypher wrote: »

If they were mounted armoured knights on war horses they might have faired better, but they are clearly based on steppe nomads/horse Archers like the Huns and Mongols who wore little to no armor and used smaller more agile horses to charge, fire a volley of arrows, and wheel away. They should never have been used for a frontal charge at an enemy whose lines you can't see and whose depth is unknown but likely significant. They could risk it against the Lannisters in 'Spoils of War' only because the Lannisters forces were stretched so thin. Against an army of the undead they might be able to penetrate 50-100 metres but they won't be able to burst out the other side to safety . If the horses weren't already knackered by the charge up to the enemy lines they would definitely lose their momentum once they hit it. Unable to burst through the mass of enemy and out the other side(any side) they'd soon get mired and pulled off their horses. A flaming Arakh can only do so much.

Logically, they would have spent ages whittling away the edges of the army of the dead at range, followed by picking off smaller groups that chase them away from the main body with their arakhs. However, the show still has to get to the point where the Dothraki are worn down and mostly eliminated. I can see that they had to do this, but I'm not sure that the method they used was the best way to do it. My initial response to the scene was "Woah! That looks amazing!" followed a while after by "But it doesn't make any sense from a technical military history perspective...". Maybe most viewers were happy enough with the "Wow!" visuals without worrying about the technicalities.

The rollercoaster of "we're doomed" to "this is working, we're gonna be okay", back to "we're doomed" again had to be traveled. It was just a bit too brief for my own tastes. I guess budget and time concerns ruled out the more "correct" version of their defeat.

Necro wrote: »

Edges? More like a solid wall of dead bodies stretching for miles..

Great point.

Necro wrote: »

if they reduced in number the NK just raises all the dead from the battlefield.

Can't remember, but can the "dead" dead be raised again? I think some of them were crumbling after being hit by the dragonglass weapons.

Necro wrote: »

The ONLY quibble if I have to be nitpicky is him surviving a head on blast of dragon fire - I think that was a bit silly.

Yeah, some kind of ice shield would have been appropriate here.

Dropped it in the snow as she sauntered out to die.
Power looked to be gone as the Ruby went dark.

Necro wrote: »

Edges? More like a solid wall of dead bodies stretching for miles.

How big are we saying the NK's army is? 100,000? Bunched up that doesn't actually take up that much space. Croke Park takes 80,000 like

Where the knights of the Vale there ?

Also I bet Daario Naharis turns up with the gold company to cause mayhem for Cersei

Harambe wrote: »

I saw the knights of the vale during the battle, you'll notice the shields with the House Arryn sigil (bird and a crescent moon), I believe they were standing behind Brienne at one stage. Did not see Lord Royce though.

Yeah Brienne was commanding the left wing which was composed of the knights of the Vale (on foot) with Pod and Jamie as her lieutenants.

Overall I was disappointed with the episode. It was hyped as the greatest battle ever committed to film and it wasn't that. Say what you want about GOTS plotting and consistency in the last few seasons but it has always held up on the spectacle front - up until now. That's not to say that it was a bad episode or anything like that - it was still an astounding and breathtaking feat of filmmaking. But it wasn't up to the battle scenes of earlier seasons. It wasn't as good as BOB, the loot train, Hardhome or even the battle of the wall. It probably slightly edged out Blackwater. And 5th place for the culminating battle of your own 8 season show just doesn't cut it.

I think that they probably shot for the moon and missed. Fighting a battle in an ice storm at night against CGI zombies probably just pushed the envelope a bit too far vis a vis current technology. It was murky and confusing to watch. They had the best fight scene director currently operating in the world on the job so I think if he couldn't get it done then no-one could.

I think that D+D have achieved an amazing show over the years. There has never been a tv show of this scale and ambition before and never may be again. I remember Michael Imperoli in an interview years ago saying that the worst film you ever saw was made by talented people trying really hard to make art or at least something entertaining. The fact that it was so bad just shows you how astoundingly hard it is to make good films or tv shows. GOT isn't in the top tier of the top quality shows like the sopranos, the wire, madmen, breaking bad but it many ways its in a league of its own. Its first 3 seasons might have been but for budget constraints but as the budget increased the writing got sloppier and sloppier. It became a totally different show and worth watching for totally different reasons.

I remember seeing an article years ago which set out the shooting schedule that GOT had to do each year and it was so brutal. Whole swathes of the GOT production team have had very circumscribed lives for years on end at this stage D and D especially.

Taking all that into consideration it is clear that what they enjoyed is the political game of thrones - the show is not called a song of ice and fire. This was obvious when Dan said in the Inside the Episode something like "the valryian dagger killed the NK . i dont know why - youll have to figure that out for yourselves". That showing a pretty serious level of disengagement from your own canon.

I think for all the lip service towards this being the real war that mattered the one they really cared for was who sits the Iron Throne. As others have pointed out everyone who sat out the Battle for the dawn is doing much better at no cost whatsoever - pretty bad climate change analogy!!. To my mind D and D were always a bit too in love with the cynical winner takes all view of politics and war. In the books we are seeing this short term lannister approach lead their house to creating legions of bitter enemies who will inevitably take their revenge. Neds approach didnt play well in kings Landing - but his bannermen are rallying to his childrens cause out of love for him and his decency. In the tv show the only loyal bannermen are the lannister lords!!. Because D and D dont value soft power only badasses. We kept being told sansa and tyrion are strategic geniuses but tvsansa has never displayed any skills (deploying the vale army which LF arranged for her is so obvious it doesn't count) and tvtyrion has achieved nothing of note since the Blackwater. Booktyrion launched a spoiler invasion of westeros using a game of cyravesse.

The Good

That extra guy with the beard who fought for stannis and then the starks getting reanimated

Arya killing the NK was a cool scene even if it made no thematic sense and was all about the writers rewarding one of their favourite characters and actors and pulling off another twist.

The unsullied scenes were epic. By far the best army on the series. Great to see Grey Worm actually be a general for once and make tactical calls instead of just another foot soldier. The US actually used a retreating formation which was cool.

Some epic shots of the dragons strafing or getting above the cloud cover.

I thought that the ironborns last stand was actually well shot and choreographed.

Arya unleashed against the wights before she took the headshot was cool - as was Davos just staring agog

Some of Jons scenes once he got into the keep with the tracking shot was cool. I also loved that he ignored sam as he had to be ruthless and get back to the godswood.

Sam getting Dolrous Edd killed

Drogon getting swamped by undead

OKish

In this battle I can live with the idiotic Dothraki charge because I understand the budget constraints that plains cavalry deployed against a cgi army would entail - and the lights winking out

Arya library scene - except were these the braintrust wights - how were the so much quieter and smarter than any we have seen before?

Jorahs/Theons death scenes

Lyanna Mormonts last charge was kinda narmish but also kinda fun

Likewise Berics death

Bad

Tactics 101 - Catapults behind infantry. Fire more than one salvo. 25 year old strategy games AI know this!!.

We have seen the effectiveness of unsullied Lannister and Bolton infantry in Pike and shield formations. Why was the rest of the army just in general melee formation.

Some boiling pitch and rocks for the wall. Like we saw in season 2 Blackwater. Maybe fire more arrows when the dead are stationary in front of the fire trench instead of just staring at them. I thought some of the stuff on the parapets looked like dragonglass scythes!!. Nope. Lay out some dragonglass spikes and caltops and pour buckets of them and the liquid dragon glass on the dead. Nope.

Brans storyline has been as useless as his legs. He got the three eyed raven killed and then pretty much did nothing else except stir up potential conflict on the eve of battle.

The nightking storyline is to quote the hound "a smoking pile of rubble". Whats the NKs motivation, why did he stir now, why the symbols, whats going on with the babies - who cares!!!

The show has settled on traditional unstoppable badasses such as Jamie, Brienne, Tormund, Jon, davos? and sam?. They are essentially indestructible on the battlefield. Why did Jamie and Brienne ever surrender to Locke and his outriders. They could have slaughtered them all in minutes. They have full-on reached Aragon levels of superhuman ability.

Im hopeful that once they get back to kings landing and the machinations against cersei the show will have one more decent battle set piece (i think arya will overplay her hand and get killed by the mountain which will set off the hound and clegane bowl.) In reality 2 dragons (and the rest of the vale armies and dorne and maybe even the tullys - but i think DD have forgotten about them) should curbstomp 20k mercenaries but they will probably put their thumbs on the scales one last time before she gets her comeuppance.

fash wrote: »

Not that far for a horse- I read a good analysis of correct tactics online suggesting that they would have been used for reconnaissance and repeated harrying (with bows and dragon glass arrows) over several days followed by harrying from the rear and sides - just far back enough that the numbers aren't too thick and you scythe right through then scythe right back again and again.

Weve seen jon snow on one horse escape from the entire army of the dead. The dothraki would have remounts. Which granted you never see in movies and is rarely even mentioned in fantasy novels